10 April 2010

The highlighting system in FAS was revealed with little fanfare, leaving many questions unanswered. Luckily, DysPatch has answered many questions about its implementation in this FAS Forum post.

Q: Or is there an option to turn highlights off for specific things, such as objectives, crates and people with specific skills (medic/leader)?

A: Yes, you can turn these effects off in your multilayer options.

Q: Does the ammo box's color change depending on the damage? Like if its in mint condition, its bright green, but servery damaged its dark green (or yellow)?

A: Not currently.

Q: What happens when an objective is destroyed? Does the outline just disappear completely?

A: The highlight will stay there until it is respawned.

Q: Would CTI items also get this glow when they are included as well?

A: We haven't completed the CTI gameplay model since we do not have any CTI maps yet, but the CTI objects in the map will have the glow. We have other plans to indicate where the intelligence is when a player is carrying it.

Q: Is this a mapping entity added to the specific objects, or does the engine automatically apply the glow for these specific objects?

A: No it is not a mapping entity, it is automatically created.

Q: How would the leadership aura work with this?

A: In terms of leadership, we haven't decided what we are going to do with the highlights, but it will most likely show on the players affected by the aura. In terms of whether or not YOU are being supported by the aura, we will either have an icon or a shader for RC1. Our ultimate goal is to get a shader that adds a subtle effect to your screen, but we may not have time to implement that and may stick with just a leadership icon on the HUD.

Q: What effect does this have on the all ready existing player indicators, if at all?

A: We are keeping the overhead indicators because they still serve a purpose that the highlights do not (health indicator, rank indicator, and skill indicator). We most likely will not be adding highlights to individual players because the screen could get cluttered very easily.